Mexican local candidate killed along with others in ambush

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Updated 10:36 am, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A state assembly candidate in southern Mexico has been killed along with several other people in an ambush of his vehicle, his party and state officials said.

He was the 19th candidate to be killed during the current nationwide election campaign. Another 29 people who were planning to run have also been killed.

Presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador issued a tweet saying candidate Emigdio Lopez Avendano and four other people died in the attack Monday. However, other officials reported that one or two of those accompanying Lopez Avendano may have survived the attack near the town of Ejutla, south of Oaxaca city.

Lopez Avendano was running for Lopez Obrador's Morena party. It was unclear whether those accompanying him were campaign staff.

Officials did not immediately speculate on a motive for the attack on Lopez, and the reasons for attacks on other candidates have often been unclear. While some may have been personal disputes, security experts say many are carried out by organized crime groups trying to ensure compliant local governments.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Mexican-local-candidate-killed-along-with-4-13026611.php

[sandensea]

1. Being a progressive candidate in Mexico or Colombia is indeed a hazardous endeavor.

Dozens of centrist, center-left, or leftist candidates killed in each country over the last few years, as you know. Brazil's heading the same way (Marielle Franco).

Thank you for always keeping up with these kinds of news, Judi. Our media rarely if ever covers them.

[Judi Lynn]

2. It looks as if corporate media only cover the Americas when there is a propaganda advantage,

points to score against progressive politicians, or, rather wildly spun points to score against them.

Thanks for mentioning someone who was widely respected and loved, Marielle Franco, who was the voice for the poor in Rio. Assassinated before her reputation and support became even more popular, and celebrated. It's so easy to see from the moment the hitman gunned her down in her car that the Brazilian right-wing wanted her out of the way as soon as possible.

Anyone who dares to stand up against the racist, greedy oligarchs is immediately in danger, and it's becomes so apparent for anyone in the US who wants to spend his/her time and energy, and intelligently invest in looking into Latin American affairs, all of which the US is deeply, deeply involved, even though it's never discussed in corporate news outlets here.







Of course, they feared what she would do to lessen the suffering of the masses.

[sandensea]

4. And then of course there's the Argentine way:

Frame'em, and jail'em - but only if they're opponents of the Macri regime.

Charges against Macri and his toadies are religiouslously dismissed, even with ample documented proof (Panama and Paradise Papers, incriminating e-mails, etc.).

Cheeto must wish he could do that!

[Judi Lynn]

3. Why Are Mainstream Media Slandering Mexico's Lpez Obrador?

Why Are Mainstream Media Slandering Mexico’s López Obrador?
Instead of recognizing neoliberalism’s failure, they attack the Mexican leader who has successfully indicted it.
By James NorthTwitter TODAY 10:52 AM

If Andrés Manuel López Obrador—who by all predictions will be the next president of Mexico after the July 1 elections—lived in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, the US mainstream press would have already canonized him as a hero of democracy. AMLO, as he is universally known, would be praised for leading a nationwide, nonviolent, decades-long movement on its way to defeating a corrupt ruling elite at the ballot box.

Instead, the US media continually slander López Obrador as a dangerous “populist demagogue” with a “messiah complex” who could turn Mexico into another Venezuela. Among others, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and The Atlantic have misrepresented him; so far The New York Times has published four op-ed pieces, and three were hostile, even the article by a purported supporter. The nastiest attack so far, a June 17 Washington Post editorial, said that López Obrador “bears more than a passing political resemblance to President Trump.” The Economist repeated the slur, putting AMLO’s picture on its latest cover next to the headline “Mexico’s answer to Donald Trump.”

The US media are implying that AMLO’s lifelong, nonviolent campaign for democracy is somehow more dangerous than the two candidates who oppose him, both of whom belong to the violent and corrupt political elite that has plunged Mexico into its worst crisis in a century. Mainstream commentators are afraid to say so, but they must privately hope that one of the two privileged-class candidates wins (which, given López Obrador’s overwhelming lead in all the polls, could only happen due to stupendous fraud).

More than just personal pique explains why the mainstream is smearing López Obrador. Mexico has for more than two decades faithfully followed the neoliberal orthodoxy about economic growth, vigorously advocated by the International Monetary Fund, the US Treasury Department, and Wall Street. Starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, Mexico has been one of neoliberalism’s most dutiful pupils in the Global South. And the result has been crushing failure: since 1996, a pathetic per capita economic growth rate below 1.5 percent, one of the worst in all of Latin America, and an exodus, starting in the mid-1990s, of nearly 4 million economic refugees northward to the United States that didn’t stop until the 2008 Great Recession. The chronic stagnation has further discredited the traditional elite and boosted López Obrador’s calls for another economic path. But instead of recognizing neoliberalism’s failure, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist attack the Mexican leader who has successfully indicted it.

More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/mainstream-media-slandering-mexicos-lopez-obrador/